Exiled
by HowTheHoursGoBy
Summary: They never fit in. They were merely teenagers, given abilites that they could not control, expected to follow every rule that was given to them by Olympus. But what happens when they begin to resist? PJO Mortal/Test-Subject AU.
1. Prologue: Connected Through The Papers

**A/N: So, I read a story on another site called Phobia, recently. I liked the idea, but then I started thinking of this. My planned idea of having a seperated world of the Mortals and Demigods.**

 **And thus this monstrosity came forward.**

 **A thing to note, Dennis IS NOT going to be the main-character. We'll get much more into the demigods next chapter. I just wanted something to show the effects on the Mortal world and how the Demigods fit in (or, well, DON'T). This also takes place in the future.**

 **Read and Review!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own PJO, KC, HOO, MCGA, or TOA.**

* * *

There were three things that Dennis had to do that evening.

Number one: take the garbage out.

Number two: read the damn magazine.

And number three: get the paper.

It sounded simple, on his standards. Most nights were about going to a post-apocalyptic preparation/survival training meeting.

Dennis didn't know why the heck he had to do those. Sure, random people with abilities lurked throughout the planet, were quote-on-quote 'dangerous', and they could cause the apocalypse at _any given time_.

But that didn't mean his family had to be _paranoid_ about it.

Every minute of every day was spent looking at schedules and managing the food supply. They stocked the cans against the boxes in a locked cabinet, not wanting the (non-existent) robbers to sneak in and take their supplies right out of their reach.

Unless you were Dennis, Phelia, or Gerald.

Then you just went to school. Such fun.

Dennis didn't know why they were still making them go to school with threats like these. He supposed it was to teach them of the dangers of the 'Exiled', but half the time, they _didn't even know what that meant_.

They were taught in the span of a decade that all of the powerful kids should be sent to the labs where they belonged. That no one should remain after it was all over and done. That the kids should learn this garbage, go to some kind of training camp, and _boom!_ The kids now had the jobs that they once did.

It . . . Wasn't exactly the most _pleasant_ thought in the world.

Anyways, so here was his basic schedule:

 _7-8: Eat breakfast. Usually it was some sort of strange concoction of scrambled eggs and blueberries. Yeah, no one said that Phelia could_ cook _._

 _8-9: First period. Art Class. Otherwise known as the most peaceful time of the entire day._

 _9-10: Second period. Some kind of warrior/exercise drill about the importance of recognizing the enemy. It was usually a different topic each month. Next it would be the Obstacle Course. Thank goodness he had borrowed Mr. Harrow's schedule._

 _10-11: Third Period. English, or quite possibly propaganda. They just read off the textbooks for an hour. It wasn't fun in the slightest. Especially not when they had Magazine-Homework._

 _11-12: Fourth Period. Science. Otherwise known as how to get yelled at Part 2._

 _12-1: Fifth Period. Advisory. All you did was go get your lunch. (Dennis always did that, for he could not spend another minute eating Phelia's cooking.) After that, you just came back to the classroom and watched more of the news._

 _1-2: Math/History/Constant Guest Speaker/What-The-Hell-Are-We-Doing Class. Otherwise known as the monstrosity of Sixth Period. At least the lessons could be_ somewhat _interesting. Like that one time they brought in Corey Bailer from the High-School to talk about computers. Or the other times when Nancy Bobofit came, speaking war-inflicted garbage that she rolled her eyes at at every opportunity she had._

 _2-3: Seventh. Free-Period. Dennis basically just tried to keep himself sane in the Library for a while._

 _3-3 ½: Dismissal. Dennis either rode in the car or just walked home._

 _3 ½-4: Usually that endured war-meetings and chores._

 _4-5: Patiently waiting for dinner. Gerald annoyed him at every opportunity._

 _5-6: Mom cooked some sandwiches. They never had soup, for they needed it for 'dire causes'._

 _6-7: Dinner time. Mom talked about her job. Dad read the paper. Phelia talked about the newest nail-trends, so they all pretended they cared. Gerald said things about Estelle Jackson-Blofis. Over. And over. And over. AGAIN. Dennis, meanwhile, attempted to find an excuse to leave the dinner table much earlier._

 _7-8: Mom said, "Do your homework, kids!" Gerald did boring fourth-grade addition. Phelia listened to very loud rock music instead of studying for AP History. Dennis did his eighth-grade English homework._

 _8-9: Unwinding time. Dennis listened to music._

 _9-9 ½: Lights. Out._

 _Next Morning: Rinse and Repeat._

Now, imagine taking _all_ of that, and throwing out the window like a glass computer, watching it shatter like a porcelain vase.

There, now you have Dennis' Thursday afternoon.

* * *

Anyways, it all began when they left the car in the garage at 3:30 in the afternoon.

"I call shotgun on the way home tomorrow!" Gerald screeched, and Dennis wondered if he really _had_ been spending his time with the Screech-Owls.

Phelia rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Mom, can't I—"

"No," Mom said, her eyes coldly staring at the glass windows of the car. "You know how I feel about that."

"Come _on_ ," Phelia whined, her voice quickly becoming annoyed. "It's not like I have to travel far. Look, Mom, the ride home basically consists of _nothing_. No gangs, no zombies. No robbers. No Exiled. I'd be fine."

Mom slammed the door entirely shut, "None of that matters. Imagine being a parent. You wouldn't want to send your kid out in a car to the house, when the apocalypse is _waiting_. They're—oh, Dennis? Gerald? How about the two of you go into your room, okay?"

She didn't even have to say it twice. Dennis nodded, and the two sped off into the hallway, not even taking a moment to breathe. They both knew what was going to happen next.

Immediately, Dennis slammed the door, and Gerald hid behind the bed. Only five seconds later, a scream erupted from the kitchen, a banshee's sound, frightening and screeching:

"OPHELIA PAIGE CARULE! HOW _DARE_ YOU MAKE AN EYE-ROLL AT ME! THINK OF _THEM_ , LURKING BEHIND THE BUILDINGS AND READY TO STRIKE! I SAW ONE ON MY WAY BACK FROM WORK TODAY! YOU CAN'T _HONESTLY_ BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE THE PROBLEM OF THE SITUATION! THINK OF THEM, THE EXILED I'VE WARNED AGAINST, PREPARING FOR REBELLION! THIS ATTITUDE IS _LUDICROUS_ , YOUNG LADY!"

Dennis drowned out what she said afterward, his gaze slowly switching to Gerald's. His younger brother's face was filled with shock, all of it plastered across his expression.

"You don't think—?" He asked. Dennis nodded as his response, still as dumbfounded at the situation as the nine-year old.

They sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating what had just happened and if it were real or just an illusion, fabricated by all of reality. Their eyes hardly lifted an inch from the floor.

After a few minutes, once the screaming of their mother was drowned out, Dennis reassured Gerald, "It could jut be one of the paranoid things she says, you know? Like of how all the zombies are gonna attack once October hits. There can't _really_ be people called the Exiled, can there?"

Gerald's gaze looked up, staring him straight in the eye, "You're lying." He stated.

Dennis didn't know how to respond to that.

The silence returned for a few moments more before Gerald blurted out, "Estelle's brother is one, you know."

Dennis was bewildered by this statement, " _What_?"

"An Exiled," Dennis continued. "They came to her house when she was around three. She doesn't remember that much about it, but apparently the house got flooded. Her parents locked her in a room, and she heard some muffled voices.

"She said that her parents told her that it wasn't very pleasant. Something happened that day, something that you can't exactly tell someone my age. But that's just it. I want to find out _what_."

Dennis was confused, "Wait, what the hell does any of this have to do with the Exiled?"

"I'm getting to that," Gerald said. "You see, apparently her brother was an Exiled. He hadn't seemed like he was dangerous, not back then. He was just . . . _Human_."

Gerald laughed, "Of course, he wasn't actually. That'd be too easy, wouldn't it? Being human and nothing else around the world? It'd be _ridiculous_. The kid was there to act like a human, enjoy the home, destroy his family, and then get caught and executed. It's simple, isn't it?"

 _No,_ Dennis thought. _It's not simple. It's borderline strange and I don't get society's explanation for it._

Neither of them got to say another word, as their mother barged into the room.

Her black hair was unkempt and wild, her green eyes darting between the two of their gazes. She looked as if she had been through a war, which, considering Phelia, was always an option.

"So!" She exclaimed cheerfully, which seemed unsettling to Dennis in it's context. "Who would like to help me set up the bunker?"

Saying no was not an option here.

And so they did what she asked.

* * *

There were three things that Dennis had to do after dinner.

Phelia didn't show up to dinner that evening. His mother said that she was just angry, and that she'd be over it soon and that things would go back to normal again.

Dennis didn't believe that in the slightest.

And so he spent dinner wondering about his homework, and potential ways to convince Miss Kerr (she usually taught pre-Algebra, but somehow got roped into a reading job) that the reason that he thought the homework was pointless was because of the fact that it made no sense in reality.

After he ate his broccoli, his father said, "You are excused."

It was normalcy throughout dinner to act as such. You weren't really supposed to act as casually without at least five people there. Without Phelia, there were merely four people to have a conversation.

And it wasn't all that exciting.

Once he pushed his chair inwards, Dennis rushed to fling open the door, the windy air making him feel calmer and much less unsettled than usual. His green eyes fixated among the wooden posts outside the Drearson house, the Lemonade stand unused throughout the harsher days.

He began to walk towards the stand, the directions eternally in his head, their monotone never changing even throughout the rougher days.

Right. Left. Turn left three more times. Go right once. Go straight until you reach the stand.

And so he walked the typical route, reaching the Newspaper Stand where he got his father the paper every evening since three years ago. This time, however, Daphne was nowhere to be found. In his place as the salesman was a sign:

 _CLOSED FOR THE EVENING. Just grab a paper and go._

Dennis frowned as he saw this, for his mother did not condone theft in the slightest. This was also quite odd, from his perspective. Daphne Willows, who always greeted you with a smile no matter your circumstance. She was quite young to be working this position; only nineteen years old.

Dennis tried not to make her absence impact him. She could just be sick, for all he knew!

And so, he grabbed the paper with the headline: OLYMPUS STRIKES AGAIN. He rolled his eyes at the title. Olympus was known as a highly respected research-facility who had to be doing _something_ , to earn all the money they made.

But no one ever found out where the money actually _came_ from.

He took the paper, and sped off with it. Who cared if it was stealing? Daphne wouldn't mind, anyway.

And so he ran.

* * *

Taking out the trash didn't take much effort at all.

It wasn't a very exciting story to tell.

All he did was grab the bags and put them outside for the Collector to grab it.

They lived on a much more rural area of New York. A lot of those were being formed nowadays, as nobody could risk the cities exploding at the next possible second.

That was the reason of why the neighborhood talked a lot. It was better to have more allies and cover more ground than it was to have nothing.

By this point, it was 7:30 at night, so now he had to do his English homework.

He didn't like to do the assignments with Gerald nearby, as he found his younger brother's questions to quickly become annoying. And so, he decided on a cramped closet, with a flashlight in one hand, a pencil in the other.

The magazine that they had to read for class that day was called _The Exiled: Dangerous or Misunderstood?_

Apparently it was supposed to be about the taking of the Exiled kids since eighteen years prior, and was supposed to provide an 'unbiased' perspective on them.

What crap.

All of them said the kid was guilty, anyway.

So, for that day, Dennis' class had to read about something on page 5 about a movie-star's daughter.

He flipped the page to the correct number, and he began to read:

* * *

 _ **The Mystery Of The McLeans**_

 _It's no surprise that the Exiled have been a diverse species over the years, their potential brimming within the surface as if they are experiments._

 _However, there are certain cases that still baffle scientists today, and the tale of a movie-star's daughter is one of them._

 _Tristan McLean (32), a Cherokee from Oklahoma was once only an ordinary man, one who was curious to discover the sight of the world around him._

 _No one expected him to become rich._

 _The man's most famous work as an actor,_ King Of Sparta, _dominated the box-office at it's release. Critics praised the film on it's elements, believing it to be crafted spectacularly._

 _However, on a simple night with his daughter away from California, tragedy struck._

 _Piper McLean (9) was always known amongst the media as being an adorable little girl. People predicted her life, all of them wondering how the fame would affect such a young girl._

 _It seems to have been worse than what they could have imagined._

 _Piper was a character, to say the least._

" _I spoke with her once," Says Gertrude Aldronus (18) of California. "At a premiere for the newest film. My friends and I were incredibly excited to meet Tristan for the first time, and meeting Piper was a pleasure as well."_

 _Aldronus says that Piper was incredibly well-behaved when she spoke with her._

" _She was a nice girl; she loved to talk, any subjects would do. Whether it came to dolls to movies to sticks, and even my education, she would always listen."_

 _However, it seems that Piper was less stable than she appeared._

 _On Friday, October 14_ _th_ _, 2064, Piper was discovered to have been an Exiled, when she tortured her father in their own traditional home._

" _There were some men," Jackson Almwood (67) says. "We didn't see them often, so we didn't exactly know how to react. They were professional for these parts, and they asked me where the McLean house was. And so I told them. They just nodded along like it made complete and total sense, said something into their communication-device, and went on their way."_

 _It appears that when these men went into the house, Piper began to use electric shocks for her father to do something for her._

 _Reports of a high amount of screaming came from the site, and many claim that they never saw it coming._

" _Such a sweet kid," Says Betty Prygord (23). "She was a bit lonely, but I never expected . . . ."_

 _When officers reported to the site an hour later, both of the McLeans were gone, as were the two men. The men were later identified as being Exiled retrievers, and as Mr. McLean's romantic life still remains unknown, we can safely assume that an Exiled has caused suffering once again._

* * *

Dennis shuddered as he closed the article, attempting not to look at the picture fo a nine year old girl smiling at the camera. He frowned once he shut the book. There had to be a much larger story to this, right? It couldn't just end here.

After contemplating this fact for around fifteen minutes, Dennis got up, and prepared himself for bed. He went into his and Gerald's room, and carefully shut the door.

Gerald looked at him weirdly, his face skeptical. "Hey, how are—Um, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.

"I'm fine." Dennis monotoned, hardly noticing the auto-response that he had given.

He climbed into bed, and the lights turned off.

He couldn't get the nine year old out've his head.

But he knew one thing.

Things weren't going to be the same tomorrow. . .

* * *

He was right.

They weren't.

But not for the way he expected.

It was for the others who he had read about, those unfairly accused for a crime that they never committed.

Their enemies had a price to pay.

* * *

" _He's dangerous. I don't know why they brought him here to begin with."_

You could talk to ghosts but they made you bitter.

" _You might be traveling to higher ground soon, huh?"_

You could fly but you never felt safe.

" _I've heard of what he's done. Trust me, a few scratches isn't the worst you could get from him."_

You could become any animal you wanted but were losing your humanity.

" _She's been screaming for the past fifteen days."_

You could become invisible but you were falling apart.

" _Shut. UP!"_

You could manipulate others but rarely spoke.

" _Just stay_ away _from me!"_

You could light up pathways but didn't want to burn others.

" _What's this? The third time now? The kid's gotta pull his act together."_

You could summon lightning but your memory's disappearing.

" _You heard of Jackson? Subject 4-3-37?"_

You could command water but felt it consuming you.

" _It's… It's not as good as most might think."_

You could create metals but killed with each one.

Many subjects were put under the test. Each were told they had a high Potential, something that a majority of society could only ever hope to grasp. The Potentials were lucky, the scientists said. They could grasp the true context of what reality had to offer, be obedient with every command.

They could be trusted with any command. Or, at least, that's what they thought.

Giving humans these powers not only isolated them, but made them even more determined. They could fight. They could succeed.

The scientists thought that liabilities would make them hesitate. Those just made them stronger.

Because no matter where they went, the ones to burn life to the ground would always be the Exiled.

* * *

 **A/N: Criticism is always appreciated!**


	2. Chapter 1: The Kaleidoscope Eyes

**A/N: I planned to have this updated much earlier, but my direction of this chapter changed midway through.**

 **To DDaughterofAthena: Thank you! Your review made me want to continue on with this storyline which I wasn't entirely sure about to begin with.**

 **Thank you to Kawkawrawr and Retr1bution for Following, and thank you to DDaughterofAthena and mylifeisogre for Favoriting!**

 **Also, thank you to Grace842 and Thunderfang447 for Following** _ **and**_ **Favoriting!**

 **I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I. Don't. Own. PJO.**

* * *

Silence was what her life contained.

Hours upon hours, sitting upon the metal floors of her cell while she attempted to distract herself from the frigid temperature. She sat there alone, gazing at anything that could hold her attention.

There was no one to talk to.

And she rarely spoke.

A majority of the days went by in a flash, not having anything specific about them to remember. She would usually put her ear to the wall, wondering if anyone could begin to speak of something that would hold her interest.

She got food a majority of the days. Prison food, stale and unclean. She attempted to make the most of the situation, believing that maybe she could gain the access to a better quality of a meal someday.

But the Exiled never got the sort.

She only left the cell twice a month. The first was for tests to be ran upon her, where she would wear a metal sign for what seemed like a mugshot, the words now etched into her brain:

 _Subject 10-2-15._

She loathed those numbers. They took her identity away from her, made her feel as if she were something less than human.

She never voiced it aloud, but her name was Piper. Piper Elizabeth McLean, and no one, not even Olympus, could take that away from her.

The only other time she escaped the clutches of isolation was when they ran a check upon her. It was for her chip, the tracker that kept her as one of _them_.

She knew that society would never welcome her back. That she was exiled, no matter where she would go.

All because of some lousy experiments that gave her an ability she _never even asked for_.

It was then that she began to hear the footsteps.

Startled, she stumbled back just a few steps, until she heard the voices. They were muffled with the wall separation, but she placed her ear to the cell, where she began to eavesdrop.

A man's voice was the first to have been heard: "How's your shift been going?"

Another voice joined him; a woman's. She groaned, and said, "What do you _think_?"

"Huh," the man said as if he was in thought. "I suppose that it isn't going very well."

" _Tell me_ about it," the woman said, rather exasperatedly. "I've been stuck with the Level Twos. The _Six-Twos_. And one of them's lost it. I think she's number 55."

"What's she been doing?" The man asked.

"She's been screaming for the past fifteen days. She just won't stop. I tried to tell her supervisor that we should just let her go and be done with it. But she just won't _budge_."

The man sighed. "The girl you're talking about is not the only one. Underwood and Grace One—"

The woman shushed him, "Quiet! Say their damn numbers, or else you're _going_ to get yourself fired. Saying that around these parts—I thought you had more sense than that!"

" _Fine_. 63 and 12 have been screaming, too. The girl makes it subtle. She gets through moments where she can't stop screaming and then she's eerily quiet the next. The boy on the other hand has always been paranoid, so he's probably gone ahead and snapped."

The two were quiet for the next few moments; Piper couldn't tell what they were thinking. She wasn't telepathic, so how was she supposed to know?

The footsteps sounded away to an unknown location, so Piper removed her ear from the wall. She stared at it, attempting to contemplate what had been said between the two employees. People were screaming? About what? Had they lost it for good?

Or maybe it was only an act. Maybe they were doing it to make people scared of them? Maybe to make them not seem as if they were threats. The possibilities were infinite.

The next few hours were spent as they always had been; staring, eating the stale bread, and looking up at the closed-in structure. She wondered for what felt like the millionth time whether or not she should just attempt to break open the wall above and be done with it.

 _Gods dammit!_ All she wanted was to live a life as any normal person was, to be a dove floating amongst the trees, not being stuck in a cell with only isolation to talk to! Away from the thoughts, away from _everything_!

She wanted the tracker _out_. She _wanted_ to speak, to let her voice be heard.

But, from what it seemed now, that wasn't going to happen.

She remembered when the scientists told her to rarely speak, or else her voice would be entirely destroyed. It was as if she had a death-trap in her throat, which she might has well had.

She didn't want to make people do what she wanted. She didn't want it.

Any of it.

She heard the clock ring for curfew, and curled up under the lone bench in the room. Dust and bugs likely covered the vicinity, but she didn't care. It wasn't like her hygiene _mattered_ here.

And so she closed her eyes with this in thought.

* * *

 _Oklahoma, 2064._

 _The rain outside never seemed to subside._

 _It pattered amongst the windows; the sound could have been considered annoying, only it wasn't. It provided her with a sense of peace that even her father couldn't give her._

 _It was one of the few moments where he wasn't on the phone, and Piper was grateful for that. He never put it down, and the nine-year old was starting to get annoyed._

 _When she wanted something, he just smiled and said that he'd do it, but he never did._

 _If she wanted to spend time with him, he'd say he would but got another business call last minute._

" _It's work," he said, hoping she'd understand. And she did. Somewhat._

 _Piper just wanted things to go back to the way they had before._

 _She just wanted him to pay attention to her._

 _And he did when she stole._

 _It was never really a problem when she did such a thing. It was only_ little _things, stuff that didn't matter in the end. An eraser. A pencil. Who would really care for such a thing in, say, fifty years?_

 _Exactly. They_ wouldn't _._

 _It all began that evening, the fire crackling, her father humming a tune that she only vaguely recognized. She stared out the window at the rain, the drops temporarily lingering on it before they slid down to the earthen ground._

 _She thought it was beautiful._

 _Other girls her age talked about pretty clothes and hairstyles. Piper didn't think about things like that, preferring her brown hair to be short and choppy, easy to handle. But others preferred luscious curls, hair longer to their waist._

 _Not all of them thought like this, but the others just. . . Weren't the type of people that she liked to talk to._

 _Piper preferred environmental beauty, the rain. The earth. The sky. Other people believed that it was just about her culture, and, while yes, that did play a part, it didn't completely define her._

 _These thoughts were abruptly brought to an end when she heard two knocks on the wooden door. The second was louder than the first, as if it were there to make the presence of the knocker clearer._

 _Her father looked up at it, got up, and said, "I'll answer it."_

 _And so he did._

 _The door opened, and Piper saw two men wearing suits and black glasses. One was much more darker-skinned than the other, while the other had skin paler than moonlight. Piper wondered why they were there, considering the fact that they certainly did_ not _look like her father's agents._

 _The very man was startled by their appearance, but he quickly recomposed himself. "Come in!" He said in such a welcoming tone that Piper just wanted to facepalm._

 _Whatever happened to the Stranger-Danger rule?_

 _The two men entered in unison, staring at her with such an intensity that it felt like Piper was the reason they were there._

" _Sir, we'd like to ask about your daughter." The darker of the two men said to her father._

 _Her dad put up his hands and said, "If you'd excuse me, but what are your names? I'm Tristan, and over there is my nine-year old, Piper."_

 _The pale man spoke next, "My name is Timothy. His is Johnson." He held up a card. "We're agents for Olympus."_

 _Her dad's eyes narrowed, "Olympus?"_

" _Yes," Johnson stated. "Now, may we ask about your daughter?"_

 _Her father thought about it for a moment, and then answered with: "Of course! What do you want to know?"_

" _Yes, well, what is her Academic performance like?"_

" _Well, she sometimes steals things," Dad said._ Great, _she thought_ , let these two strangers know I'm a thief. _"But they're not major, at least not yet. She pays attention, and she gets fairly good grades."_

 _Timothy spoke this time. "Is she obedient?"_

" _Aside from the thievery, yes." Dad stated, and Piper sensed that he was suspicious. He really should have been much earlier, but she supposed that maybe he had just momentarily let his guard down._

 _Johnson pulled out a scanner, and Timothy brought out another sort of device; both had a multitude of buttons and switches to press or pull. "Sir, we'd like to know if it's okay to scan your daughter?" Timothy asked._

" _Er, yes." Dad said, his eyes shifting to each of the two men._

 _Johnson held up a scanner towards her, and said, "Stand up!"_

 _Piper cautiously did as she was told, and stood up straighter than a ruler. She felt her skin tingling as the scanner shined on her vertically; up and down, straight and center. It wasn't painful, it was just. . ._ Strange _._

 _Eventually, the scanner dimmed, and Johnson looked at it. Timothy did as well, both looking at it. Johnson said, "She's the one."_

 _Piper didn't know what to think of that._

 _Neither did her father, "_ Excuse _me?"_

 _Johnson put the scanner back into his pocket, while Timothy stated, "Sir, from the tests we have run upon your daughter, she seems to have a very high Potential. We're going to take her—"_

" _You're going to take me away?" Piper spoke up for the first time, her kaleidoscope eyes glaring at the man with fury._

 _Johnson smirked, "Yes, and you're not coming back for a long, long time."_

 _Dad stood straighter, and spoke coldly. "Now wait just a moment. There is no way in_ hell _that I am going to let you take my daughter without any more words. You are going to explain to me right now what Potential means and what you are doing."_

" _She's an Exiled," Johnson stated, his voice just speaking the blunt truth._

 _Piper didn't exactly know what that meant, but her father snarled, "Get_ out _of here!"_

 _Timothy smiled into a grin that seemed entirely maniacal, and Piper knew right then and there that these men weren't going to stop, "Gladly!"_

 _Johnson raised up a machine and flipped the switch, and Piper was suddenly filled with a desire to_ do _things. She felt a switch go into her hands, and her finger moved to press the button. She tried to resist, but her hand wouldn't budge, instead listening to whatever machine that she was holding between her brown fingers._

 _She raised it up to her father, and pressed the button._

 _Electricity came._

 _She didn't know how that was possible, but then she realized that the window had been opened, lightning striking freely amongst the sky. A part of it was fueling the switch, letting the lightning through._

 _Her father howled, his body twitching from the amount of electricity. He was resisting as much as he possibly could, but Piper's hand touched the button._

 _Again._

 _And again._

 _And_ again _._

" _I'm_ sorry _!" She choked back a sob, clearly not wanting this to happen. Her father must have thought of this as if it was betrayal._

 _She wanted to stop. She wanted for none of this to have ever happened and to have just gone back to the good old days of stealing pencils._

 _Not torture._

 _Eventually, she stopped pressing. She fell to her knees, and saw that her father had been knocked out by the amount of electricity._

" _He's not dead," Johnson snapped in a tone that was anything_ but _reassuring._

 _Timothy grinned, "Oh, what d'you think we're gonna do with her? She's Exiled all right."_

" _Probably we should just make her finish the job," Johnson said. "Get rid of everything she still has left. Like we did with that boy and the fire last year."_

" _Yeah, we need to give the rest of Olympus a show—"_

" _Shut up," Piper whispered, and the rage just came back again, firing through her as if she were a bomb. "Shut up! Shut._ UP _!"_

 _The men didn't speak for a few moments, before Johnson said, "She's Dite's, all right. Think of what that voice could accomplish."_

" _Lots of things," Timothy replied, before grinning wildly. "Hell, we could have the whole_ government _under our hands with it!"_

" _But what should we do about the father?" Johnson asked, his eyes narrowed at Piper's dad's unmoving body._

 _Timothy shrugged, "Eh. Let's just lock him up somewhere. Wouldn't be as fun if we used the same method two times within two years. We'll punish him somehow. Maybe he'll be good blackmail material."_

 _Johnson went over to her father and slung him across his shoulder, before he began to move towards the door. He opened it, walking outside._

 _Piper glared and kicked as she was dragged out by Timothy, who she definitely despised alongside his partner. She howled and pleaded for someone to help,_ anyone _to answer._

 _But no one did._

 _And so the owl calls continued throughout the night, and it was not until morning until someone finally noticed that no one remained in the McLean home._

* * *

Papers were written.

Tabloids were read.

Lies were absorbed.

The gossip of what happened spread like wildfire.

None could believe what had occurred.

None could understand that maybe a nine-year old Exiled wasn't the cause of it.

They didn't know what had happened that night.

A girl was locked up.

She was tested upon.

She faced horrors that most nine-year olds could never even fathom.

So that Monday after the incident, Miss Fairlore's class had officially lost a member for good.

The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

* * *

 **A/N: Read and Review! Criticism is always welcome!**


	3. Chapter 2: Breaking The Barriers

**A/N: Guys, I am SO sorry.**

 **I planned to get this update out on Wednesday, but things didn't go to plan and I just can't get my updating schedule in order.**

 **To DDaughterofAthena: Thank you! I'm planning to devote a chapter to at least a majority fo the major characters in this fic. That way, I could give all of them a backstory. Some of them we might get a full in-depth POV for, while others will be discussed in dialogue with another character.**

 **To UndyingSavior: I PMed you a response because I had too much to say. As an overview, yes, Dennis was there for worldbuilding, and yes, the Exiled are absolutely cursed.**

 **To Quinn: Thanks so much!**

 **Thank you to kokokko419, and pjoreader151 for Following, and thank you to UndyingSavior and Omega Alpha Hydra for both!**

 **Read and Review!**

 **DISCLAIMER: Don't own PJO.**

* * *

She awoke to the sound of alarms.

She heard the noise firmly; the blares could have likely been heard from _miles_ away. She abruptly awoke, and scrambled backwards, not knowing whether or not that it was a drill.

Shouts came from all around her, whether they were in alarm or haste remained unknown. Piper could hear the slamming of doors, the creaking of them when they were first opened. She didn't have a clue of what was going on.

 _Huh_ , she thought, attempting to distract herself from the rapid situation she had found herself in. _I didn't know I'd have an alarm clock this morning._

Dazedly, she heard the door open with a thunk, an employee with red hair and a panicked face standing before her. She didn't know why this woman was here. Was she there for checking? Was she there to take her to another test? There wasn't any sort of calendar in the cell, so how could she have been sure to begin with?

"Anyone else here?!" A voice called, and the red-haired woman looked behind her, the keys to the door in her hand. Piper crawled towards her, not making a sound beneath the hard floor. This was her only chance at escape, which, to the Exiled, was rare.

She had nearly made it to the woman's feet, when one of those said feet moved backwards onto her hand. A wave of pain washed through her, and Piper nearly winced from it. The woman turned around and glared at her.

"Nice try," She scolded, making her annoyance present towards Piper. "You ain't getting away that easily."

 _Seriously? A woman with no access to the nearest dictionary and the crappiest sense of stealth is what I'm stuck with?_ Piper internally rolled her eyes. This was already making no sense to her.

"Name of subject?" The voice that had called mere moments ago did so once again.

"Subject Ten-Two-Fifteen!" The woman sharply responded, her posture firm.

"Status?"

"All clear!" The woman reported, and she began to march out of the cell. She briefly looked back to see Piper, and only said one thing: "The next time you think of escaping, listen up. We're gonna find you and put you right here, right back in this cell, and it isn't gonna be pretty. Understand?"

Piper nodded her head at the woman's statement, making it clear that she didn't exactly want it to be repeated.

The woman walked out, and she slammed the door. The sound of the keys through the keyhole made themselves present, before the key was taken out. Footsteps were heard walking away from the cell.

And Piper still didn't have any sort of clue on what was going on.

But that didn't mean that she didn't want to find out.

* * *

It was an escape attempt, it turned out.

A _successful_ escape attempt.

Piper didn't know whether to feel awe or worry.

At first, she thought of the event as spectacular. Four Exiled, four people whom she had never gotten the chance to meet, but now regarded them with complete and utter respect had _escaped_ this hell-hole.

Unfortunately, that just meant that the guards were watching her more than they _ever_ had before.

She felt their eyes on her. Whenever a guard walked past her cell, their head would always shoot back to her, as if they were daring for her to make one wrong move, to make _one_ step out of line.

. . . It was actually getting rather annoying, the more she thought about it.

As the hours passed, as the days went by as if they were weeks, she began to grow restless inside of the rusty cell. People were on the outside; they had _escaped_ to be there.

She felt the urge to laugh internally at this. Seriously? From what she knew, the prison that was Olympus was on an _island_! How in hell could four teenagers make this escape with a chance of drowning as soon as they got out?

Ugh. She wished that this was less confusing to figure out.

But it wasn't.

And she had one-hundred sixty-eight hours to think before her world would turn upside down.

* * *

It was a week before anything happened.

A week of the normal, with stale bread and mugshots and attempting to make a dent in the wall but failing miserably.

She wished that she could just break out. She wished that she could go on the run, for she wanted to fly as high as a bird, away from dull walls and a lifestyle filled with silence and passerby conversations.

She wanted to be free.

But maybe, _just maybe_ it was going to come true.

And, eventually, it did.

* * *

It happened on the night when she least expected it.

The lights had been turned off, for there would be no patrolling the halls tonight. Piper didn't know why this had been decided, but it wasn't like she thought it was a _bad_ thing. Truthfully, she enjoyed the prospect of having a night where she didn't have to worry about paranoia and the eyes of hawks loitering around the corridors.

But, of course, just like almost every single action movie she'd ever seen in nine years, everything happened on the night where nobody expected it to.

She heard the clicks first. They were strange, and they were also rather quiet. Unnerving, if that's what you'd call it. It sounded like whenever someone was twisting a key through the hole, and Piper couldn't decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Eventually, the rapid clicks stopped; they came to an end with a subtle beeping noise. Piper was alert from then on, wondering what exactly was going on.

And she was just about to find out.

The footsteps came next. Whoever was here wasn't making their appearance prevalent, for they genuinely seemed to be attempting to make heir footsteps seem as silent as possible. She had to give them the respect for that, because of the fact that they had _actaually come up with a plan_.

Then, the figure came to a halt, and Piper could see a shadow right outside her cell.

She freaked out then, even if she would have never admitted it in a public setting. She wouldn't have wanted to seem like she was a fraidy-cat, would she?

But then came the clinging of keys, which Piper raised an eyebrow at. What would someone be doing with her at _this_ hour? Would it involve late-evening tests? Some sort of trial? Was she going to be executed for no particular reason?

The possibilities were simply endless.

It was then that the key moved throughout the hole, and Piper heard the twist before it opened.

There, standing before her, was a tall girl with her blonde hair in a ponytail. She wore an orange shirt with brown pants. But her eyes were the show-stealers. They were a calculating gray that could have made a civilian flinch.

She raised her finger to her lips in a shushing motion, and then, out of _nowhere_ , she threw her shoulder to the wall, firmly hitting it.

Piper attempted to step in, but the strange girl seemed to be doing this for a reason.

Because as soon as her shoulder collided with that wall, the doors began to slam open.

The girl beckoned her out, so Piper finally left the cell for the first time in _ages_.

She wildly looked around the hallway, and she saw four other cells, three of them with the door opened. A boy who looked similar to the gray-eyed girl who had glasses was the one opening the doors, and he approached the final target. He took the keys, jammed them in, and threw open the door.

The girl sighed in what seemed to be irritation, "No matter how many times I tell him _not_ to do that, and what does he do?"

"Who _are_ you?" Piper surprised herself with hoarsely asking such a question, considering that fact that she had not uttered a word for months. She attempted to ignore the searing pain emulating from her throat, as it would be a liability that she would _have_ to overcome.

The girl didn't respond.

Piper's attention wandered to the four other prisoners, all of them wearing the same black prison suits as hers. Two boys—identical with the exception of a minor height difference—ran up to the other and grinned. A girl with red hair and crystal blue eyes was hyperventilating near the corner. And the final girl, one that was beautiful with straight black hair, was looking intently at the slammer-boy, and Piper didn't have a clue of what she was thinking.

"All right!" The Gray-Eyed girl called, and six pairs of eyes (including Piper's) turned to hers, and she crossed her arms with authority. "Now, we've got five minutes until the alarms are un-disabled and they'll start blaring. Let's get started with introductions. Keep 'em brief. Like this," She held her hand out as if she were demonstrating. "My name is Annabeth Chase. Seventeen. Invisibility."

"And I'm Malcolm," The glasses-guy stated. "Sixteen. Mind-Control."

The red haired girl asked, "Wait, so you could be _controlling_ us right now? And we wouldn't even—"

Annabeth abruptly yelled, "Three minutes left! No more interruptions, or else we're all gonna die. You got that?"

The redhead spoke once more, "Gwen. Eighteen. Teleportation."

Next came the identical boys. The taller spoke first, "Hi! I'm Travis—"

"And I'm Connor—"

"Stoll, at your presence!" They said in a strange unison, and Piper wondered if they were telepathic for a moment.

 _Well, I wouldn't want them to be reading_ my _thoughts right about now,_ she thought.

Travis spoke again, "I'm eighteen. He's seventeen."

And then came Connor's turn, "And we've got psychokinesis! So don't let your guards down."

"Yeah," Travis said. "Otherwise you're money _will_ get stolen."

"Duly noted," Piper dryly remarked with a smirk, though the hoarseness of her tone had still not absided. "Piper M. Fifteen. And I'm the one that can make any of you lot do anything I want."

"Welcome to the club," Malcolm grinned.

The final girl did not even speak. Instead, she drew out a notepad, and began to write.

She then lifted it up: _Drew Tanaka. Subject 10-2-42. Fourteen. Same as the previous girl only_ better _._

Piper had never met another being that could use voice-manipulation before, so to say she was startled would be under-exaggerating.

Luckily for her reputation, Annabeth broke in, "Thirty seconds! Follow my lead. I'll explain everything on the way."

And so the group followed.

Well, _ran_ would be the better term to use.

* * *

Seven pairs of feet rang out through the hallways, for stealth had been entirely abandoned at this stage of the operation. It wasn't about keeping secrets anymore, no. It was about survival, and if running like a maniac was gonna be your only plan in this kind of situation, then so be it.

The alarms blared, and Piper remembered what had occurred the previous time that this had happened, when she had gotten a taste of rebellion without even realizing it.

"There are five levels in total!" Annabeth called, while security alarms covered the vicinity. "Each of them rank in power! For example, ONES ARE THE LOWEST AND FIVES ARE THE HIGHEST!" She screamed this for emphasis, and the fact that you could barely hear anything else over the alarms.

"EACH LEVEL HAS TO DO WITH YOUR SECOND NUMBER ON THE SUBJECT-DIGITS!" She screamed once more.

It was then that they saw a piece of metal flying at Gwen, so she briefly gasped and ducked as soon a s she could.

"I'LL EXPLAIN MORE WHEN WE'RE BACK AT CAMP!"

"CAMP _WHAT_?!" Piper asked.

The group made it past another barrier, this time being a wooden hurdle that was followed by twelve others of varying heights. Annabeth chose not to respond, as the group was busier with dealing with the obstacle-course of Olympus.

 _So this is how it ends, huh?_ Piper asked herself. _Get to meet a rebellion, they give you barely any answers, and now you're in the obstacle course of doom. A way to end it, huh?_

The group made their way to a semicircular tunnel, with a door leading into it. Annabeth opened it and ushered the others inside, and Piper took only one look back at the place that she had just narrowly managed to evade capture from.

They didn't stop running for a long, long time.

* * *

They made it to a hill, eventually.

Gasping for breath at this point, as they had clearly run at least three miles, the group stood across a grassy plain leading into this Camp of sorts.

There was an archway overhead, which Piper took a glimpse at, wanting to know what was etched upon it with her fellow runaways:

 _Welcome to Camp Half-Blood._

* * *

Far away, on another floor, there was another subject who was running with one other. He had black, curly hair and his eyes were darting back and forth.

The girl was much smaller, and she was much too thin for her age. She had cranberry red hair that had been hastily chopped into a bob, and coffee-brown eyes that were filled to the brim with curiosity.

 _Great. Great. Great. Look what you got yourself into._

The boy was looking at exits, attempting to find a way to get out of this predicament unscathed.

 _You just had to do this, didn't you? You just had to risk it, didn't you?_

He looked from his hands to the exits, wondering where he should go.

Wondering how he was going to make it out alive.

And wondering if maybe, just maybe, that he'd have to use something he swore _never_ to use again.

 _Way to break it, Valdez._

* * *

 **A/N: The Liabilities will come much more into plan next chapter.**

 **Criticism is always appreciated!**


	4. Chapter 3: Tour The Dark

"Where the hell are we?"

Well, that pretty much summed up the situation.

Gwen was looking at the place with wariness, and Piper could assume that she had trust issues. Then again, it wasn't as if it were out of the ordinary. They were fricking test subjects, of _course_ they had the right to be suspicious.

The Stolls were looking intently at the location, and Piper was worried that what remained of her sanity would diminish pretty damn quickly with those two.

Drew had still not said a single word, but was looking at Piper with an unreadable expression. She noticed Piper looking back, and then looked away.

Meanwhile, Annabeth looked rather triumphant, and Malcolm had the stupidest grin on his face.

It was then that another boy came from the Camp, and so Annabeth chose this as her time to be the tour guide.

"Good evening! As you know, my name is Annabeth, and that's Malcolm. This guy over here," she pointed to the new boy, "is Grover Underwood, and I'm betting you lot don't wanna start giving him a hard time."

Connor frowned. "Why not?"

"First of all," Grover spoke up. "You have a particular aura about you that advises me to stay away," Travis began to snicker about this, but then Grover's gaze met his way. He abruptly shut his mouth. "You do, as well. And, secondly, I can make every last one of you run away from me, screaming in absolute terror."

Gwen looked absolutely terrified by that point, and she quickly began to hyperventilate. Annabeth seemed to take this as a conversation to steer away from. " _Okay_ , then. Now, how about we give these newbies a tour of the place. Malcolm?"

He grinned. "Right on it."

* * *

A half hour later, Piper began to develop a list about what she had discovered:

— _Malcom Pace is absolutely insane. ("So, over here, you will see the bane of our existence: the forge. Anybody that doesn't like tools can't use it, and none of us really like tools to begin with. That is rather unfortunate. I would like to have something new to analyze, every now and then . . .")_

— _Steer as far away from the Stolls as possible. (Travis: "What if you annoy me?" Drew:_ _'And so what if I do?_ _' Connor: "Drew, do you want to get thrown into the lava pit?" Travis: "Because if you do, then we'd be happy to do the honors.")_

— _Annabeth will likely murder you in your sleep. ("Now, over here is Cabin 6, where the sixes sleep usually. Of course, I'm a six, but I don't sleep there unless I have to." Gwen: "Why not?" "Um, well, let's just say that Anna's scary." Annabeth glared as a result of this. Malcolm immediately tried to take back his words.)_

— _She also had an obsession with some guy that disappeared. Her face always got wistful, and she immediately blushed whenever someone asked her about a potential crush._

— _Drew is very intriguing, if somewhat dangerous._ _('You're actually making a very large mistake right now. One that's very, very bad.'_ _I took a wrong turn at the trail. Tripping into dirt actually_ isn't _very fun.)_

— _Gwen has a hard time adjusting here. It's clear by the way that she is gritting her teeth, but she also looks around rapidly whenever she thinks that something is happening. That someone is here . . ._

— _But, of course, maybe someone_ is _here. You don't exactly know where they are, of course._

— _Grover Underwood may just be the only sane person at this place. (Malcolm: "And over here you will find the explosives, which I can mind control you lot to check in with. It's okay if you blow up. It'll be a nice experiment." Grover: "Malcolm, if you ever do that, you're getting fired." Malcolm: "What? Why?" Grover: "Because there is a thing called common sense.")_

* * *

Piper decided that, all and all, it was better than a cell.

She remembered about the walls of the Big House, the twenty Cabins there without explanation. Malcolm had said that Annabeth had designed them, but he never stated anything else.

Piper didn't understand of how this had been built _this_ quickly. Sure, Annabeth seemed like she was the kind of person that did things fast, but this seemed near _impossible_.

She stayed quiet for a majority of the night. She didn't particularly want to talk to anyone. Sure, she might have decided to do so because she felt awakward, but Piper didn't particularly feel as if that was the case. She wasn't really the kind of person to act all awakward around other people.

What Piper noticed the most was that tree.

Annabeth would be staring off at some random pine tree every five minutes or so, and she stared at that tree with an intensity. Piper tried to keep her interest on the tour, but Annabeth seemed so much more intriguing.

Before Piper knew it, night even more fell, and the Stolls had finally quieted down. Gwen had opened up a bit, even if it was only a little. Drew was smirking about who knows what, her teeth becoming creepier as the sky turned darker.

The group of eight made their way down to the Dining Pavilion, where they were given the honors to watch Malcolm and Grover banter on the way there.

"Look, dude, I get it," Grover said. "You don't want to eat the green things longer than you have to. But get this: eating meat is repulsive to me."

"Why though?" Malcolm asked, leaning in to inspect Grover. "Is it because of a brain pattern? Something you learned at the Big House?"

"No, not really." Grover was beginning to look sheepish. "It's just the way I roll."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "Alright then. You got me there. But if we're ever out of greens, you're eating the meat. You got that?"

Piper spoke up, although very quietly. "I like vegetables. But not meat."

"Have you ever eaten meat?" Grover asked, raising an eyebrow.

Piper nodded, not wanting to speak to them again.

Malcolm squinted. "You're a vegetarian, aren't ya?"

Once again, Piper nodded at this. She was quite embarrassed speaking about this to random strangers. She could corrupt them with her voice, that curse that befell her throughout her life. She hated that.

She just wanted to be normal. Normal in her way, she supposed.

The two men got the gist of her reaction, so their conversation came back towards meals and vegetarian meal ideas.

Gwen was enjoying the scenery, and every once in a while she teleported a small distance. She never tried to leave, which Piper gathered as being because of Annabeth. Even to those who didn't know her for long, they would decide not to get in her way.

Along that line, where exactly _was_ Annabeth? Piper looked around, but she didn't notice where she could be. The Stolls were there, Drew was standing as tall as she could, but there was nobody else in the vicinity besides the seven of them.

Abruptly before she noticed it, Annabeth appeared beside her, appealingly out of thin air. _Oh, right. Invisibility. Dammit, Piper._

Annabeth had a piece of paper in her hand, and she slipped it through Piper's fingers. "Check this at the Pavilion," she whispered, looking around wildly.

Malcolm noticed, snapped his fingers, and everybody seemed to forget about the fact that Annabeth was ever there. Piper felt the temptation of that, but the years of manipulation kept her grounded to the truth.

Annabeth disappeared again, walking towards the Pavilion with the rest of them. Or, at least, Piper _thought_ she was.

But she could never be sure.

* * *

Turns out, Piper was right about not being able to be sure.

Annabeth was not at the Pavilion by the time that they arrived there. In fact, she was nowhere to be found.

Malcolm shrugged. "Oh well. Guess she's at the Pine. Maybe the House."

Gwen raised both of her eyebrows. "Are you sure you shouldn't check?"

Malcolm looked at her. "I know that girl well enough by now. She wouldn't run off without a reason."

"Maybe she's just sick of you," Travis muttered.

"Perhaps," Malcolm said, clearly having been listening. "But she wouldn't leave Lia."

"Lia?" Gwen questioned.

Malcolm looked nervous for a minute, but he then smiled and waved it off. "Did I said Lia? I meant tree, uh."

Gwen remained skeptical, but she didn't question that. Piper was worried when it came to that, because she didn't like being manipulated. But, oh well. Maybe Annabeth's notes would explain something.

The group sat down, all at one table. It was packed, and that was noticeable, but that ice needed to be broken.

Grover went into the kitchen, brought out a salad, and laid it out on the table. Everyone instantly reached to grab as much of it as they could, desperate for a change of food.

It was war, and the Pavilion was the battlefield.

Piper ended up with six tomatoes, a piece of lettuce, and four cucumbers. Maybe it wasn't the most that she could have gotten, but it was fine by her.

The people around her had managed with a similar amount of variety, but it was obvious that they were happy with this amount.

Drew wrote something down, and then held it up. _'Where'd you guys get the food?'_

Grover replied almost immediately. "We found it in the kitchen. We don't know who put it there, or how it got there, but it was there so we're eating it."

Piper wolfed down the tomatoes pretty quickly, and ate two of the cucumbers while she was at it. She clutched the cucumbers and the lettuce piece in her hand, and asked quietly. "Could I go to bed early?"

The group looked at her, and Malcolm responded. "Sure. You and Drew are in Cabin 10, in case you're wondering.

Piper accepted this, left the Pavilion, and scurried away from it. She opened the piece of paper, and read it quickly.

 _Meet me at the Pine as soon as you can. Don't tell anyone about this._

* * *

Piper changed her direction towards the Pine, and ran towards it quickly. She wondered why Annabeth needed her, why she was chosen for this, what she could have possibly shown throughout this night.

When she reached the Pine, no one was there. She waited for her to come, and soon she did.

"Welcome back," Annabeth greeted her. She gestured towards the piece of paper. "You read the note."

" _Obviously_ ," Piper muttered, and then blushed at what she said.

Annabeth laughed, although it was only for a brief few moments. "Look, you've got spunk. I like that about you."

She looked Piper in the eye, her gray eyes turning calculating. "I bet you're wondering why I chose you, huh?"

Piper nodded, partially terrified of what the reason could possibly be.

Annabeth sighed. "There were four of us that left. Me, Grover, Thalia, and Malcolm. Something went wrong with Thalia's chip, so she became . . . Well, _this_." She rubbed her hand against the tree.

She continued on, looking away from the tree. "You seem promising. I know your power, you don't ask questions, and you don't disrupt. Those are qualities that I like about a person, especially a partner."

"But, still . . ." Piper spoke up. "Why not Malcolm? Grover?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Okay, I guess I'll take back the questions thing. You don't ask as _many_ as others do." Her gaze wavered towards the sky. "I—I had a friend, a while back. They sometimes let me interact with him, and he was nice. But they transferred him down a level, and I haven't seen him since.

"Malcolm and Grover—they want me to forget about the past. To start a new life here, as free as we can be. But I can't _deal_ with that." She glared towards no specific direction. "I need closure. And, if I can't have that, then I'm betting I'm gonna go insane."

"What's his name?" Piper was surprising herself on how she kept trying to talk to people.

"His name's Luke," Annabeth clarified. "And we're gonna find out what happened to him."

"Are we gonna go down to his floor?" Piper whispered.

Annabeth shook her head. "Too risky. No, we're going to look at some files that my Doctor mentioned to me. It was a while back, but I have a pretty good idea of where it is."

"And, well, what if we don't come back?"

Annabeth grinned. "Don't worry. We're gonna make it back."

Piper was quite worried about this girl's arrogance. How could she be sure about this? Was this the best idea?

But then she remembered of how she was treated. How she was pushed aside, treated as inhumane. She despised those people for putting her through that, so why not get revenge? It was the least that they could do, after all.

"Okay," Piper said, quite slowly. "When do we start?"

Annabeth smirked. "I was thinking about right now."

* * *

Far away, but not too far, two teens were sitting by a wall. The room near them said _FILES_ , and they were exhausted from running for this long.

"Ella doesn't want us to be found. Ella's scared. Scared, scared, scared."

Leo groaned. "Seriously? You know, you're terrible at this quiet thing. You're probably gonna get us killed by that."

"Ella doesn't like death. Death is bad. Death means nothing else."

"Course it does, Ella," Leo said. "So how about we keep running?"

* * *

Near the top of the building, on the highest subject floor, a redhead in a cell awoke.

It was abruptly, and she didn't know what it was for.

And it was then that the prophecy popped into her head.

She whispered the words aloud, being unable to stop.

" _A group breaks out, perhaps at dawn_

 _And leaves no one to find the spawn_

 _The traitors gather, the mutiny spins_

 _Into a battle where there are no wins_

 _Shadows call, to the passioned meek_

 _And there they find, the death they seek."_

And, with that, her green eyes shut.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you to all of you that support this story. You all make my day.**

 **I'm aiming for weekly uploads now, but I can't entirely guarantee. But I definitely** _ **will**_ **try.**

 **So, yeah. I guess this story's back on the air!**

 **See you next week, (hopefully)**

— **E**


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